Daniel Pharris has a large New Year’s resolution on his plate: go into 2015 with a completely new combination, something that hasn’t been done yet, and be competitive in NMCA Radial Wars competition.

Wade Hopkins and his skilled crew at Southern Speed Racing in Tupelo, MS have started on one of the largest transformations for a radial team this off-season. Pharris, who was an X275 regular last season, picking up multiple wins, including a $5,000 X275 race at Dyno Dom’s Sikeston Raceway in Sikeston, Missouri. But now, he’s decided to take his SN95 Ford Mustang into the quickest and fastest class on Drag Radials — NMCA Radial Wars/Pro Drag Radial/Radial vs. The World — a class that has now seen Brad Edwards break the three-second barrier at one of the final races of the 2014 season and then the famous “Testing Nationals” between Edwards and Keith Berry, where both cars blasted down competitive numbers in the three-second range.

Southern Speed Racing began the transformation by taking the entire front end down to nothing and going to build back around the huge 481X powerplant.

In many talks with Pharris about this new venture, he feels confident that he can be right there with the other big names of 315 Drag Radial racing. But there’s a twist to this story — Pharris has made the decision to stick with the 275 Drag Radial tire, even with twice the horsepower that his new ProLine Racing/Jeff Burns Racing Engines 481X provides over his previous 8.2 deck SBF single-turbocharged combination.

Many rules sets provide a weight break for the tire, being that it has a smaller contact patch with the racing surface than the 315 Drag Radial. Pharris has stated he’s very excited and had this to say in our latest conversation: “I want to be the first person on 275’s to break the 4.0x elapsed time barrier, and possibly the three-second barrier, as well. Eric Dillard and Jeff Burns are providing us enough horsepower to accomplish this feat. With the help of Southern Speed and recent acquisition of the latest stock suspension technology from Racecraft, Inc., we look to take advantage of all the weight breaks available and come into 2015 as competitive as we’ve ever been.”

We will continue to follow this build closely as it looks like Pharris Motorsports and Southern Speed Racing are ready to turn some heads in 2015. We at Dragzine will be looking into this build closer to keep you all updated on the progress. Southern Speed Racing is doing a full build thread on their Facebook page and hope to start one soon on various forums. Be sure to keep up with their progress there, as well!